Sorry, Pete Buttigieg, but Democrats also abuse religious language – Washington Examiner

According to Pete Buttigieg, the Republican Party has no right to use religious language.

During the second Democratic primary debate on Thursday night, the presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana mayor said Republicans’ rhetoric on immigration has cost them the right to invoke God.

“The Republican Party likes to cloak itself in the language of religion. Now, our party doesn’t talk about that as much, largely for a very good reason, which was we are committed to the separation of church and state and we stand for people of any religion and people of no religion,” Buttigieg said.

Never mind that regardless of “separation of church and state,” politicians have been invoking religion since time immemorial. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who shared the stage with him, recently said that Christians should support the “free will” of a woman choosing to have an abortion — and “separation of church and state” means abortion should be legal. Yet somehow, Republicans are the only ones who abuse religion for their own political gain?

Buttigieg himself has used faith as a “cudgel” against the other side, despite professing disdain for the tactic. God doesn’t have a political party, he said last month, but if the good Lord did, “I can’t imagine it would be the one that sent the current president into the White House.”

Pulling the religion card on Thursday night, Buttigieg continued: “But we should call out hypocrisy when we see it. And for a party that associates itself with Christianity to say that it is OK to suggest that God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages, has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.”

It’s not clear which Republicans are running around supporting that straw man. Both parties should reconsider the way they use (or abuse) religion for their rhetoric, and the problem certainly isn’t just on one side.